My Best Friend Has Issues Page 6

  Some were beggars, gypsy women in long skirts and trainers, always with a baby on their hip. The women made hungry gestures: thumb and fingers pushed towards mouth. Some tourists mistook this as a plea for food, offering a share of their meal, but it was money the women wanted. Waiters were quick to eject them.

  Some were vendors, Asian boys, selling flowers; formally wrapped individual red roses or haphazard bunches of flowers. The boys spoke in wheedling voices, appealing to men to buy a rose for their lady friend and making disappointed disapproving faces when the men refused. One of them approached us.

  ‘Buy a flower for the lady?’ said the guy, grinning at Ewan.

  ‘Sanj!’ said Ewan, ‘hola chaval.’

  ‘Hola Juan,’ said the flower seller, ‘Que tal?’

  They made a show of their friendship with a long elaborate boys-in-the-hood type handshake. They spoke in Spanish while I stood with a formal grin on my face. It was Sanj who spotted my isolation and switched to limited English.

  ‘Please with meet you,’ he said, smiling.

  He was a good looking lad, about my age, maybe younger, with shiny black hair falling over dark eyes. He had really long lashes and a big innocent smile, like a bhangra dancer in a Bollywood movie. He was small, only slightly taller than me and thin, a featherweight. Being a flower seller suited him. He wasn’t begging. I’d watched him move around the tables calmly, a chilled-out hippy.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

  ‘Sanj, this is my friend Alison,’ said Ewan, enunciating slowly and carefully. ‘She is from Scotland. Like me.’

  With the introductions over Ewan returned to speaking Spanish. Rather than stand there smiling I took the opportunity to go to the toilet. When I came back Sanj had moved off to work the rest of the tables and Ewan handed me a fresh glass of wine and a bunch of flowers.

  ‘Thought these might straighten your face,’ he said gruffly.

  No one had ever bought me flowers before. No, that wasn’t true. My brothers had brought armloads when I was dying in hospital but that was different. When I was dying in hospital I couldn’t understand how these beautiful dead things, cut off in their prime, were supposed to make me feel better. Death was ugly and frightening, I’d come to Barcelona to get away from it. But perhaps Ewan had only bought them to help out his friend. I’d watched the previous vendors work hard even to sell a one-euro rose. I couldn’t see how there was any money in it. But even so, I was grateful to Ewan for the gesture.

  ‘Cheers,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ asked Ewan.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, we can’t let you go hungry. Your big brother would kill me.’

  Dear Lisa and Lauren, Having dinner in a café with my date. He has just bought me flowers. On my second glass of wine. Mum and Dr Collins can go fuck themselves. Wine here is poured from the casks, nice and fresh although I know your palate is more suited to boxes of Morrison’s own-brand Chardonnay.

  While Ewan organised us a table he asked me to choose something from the food piled in the glass case on the bar. This system was different from the Spanish restaurant I’d been to in Cumbernauld. In Cumbernauld miniscule portions of sausage or prawns, bobbing in pools of green oil, were ordered from a menu.

  Apart from sardines, which I didn’t like anyway, I didn’t recognise anything. Ewan pointed towards something he described as ‘chiperones’ and I nodded, only because the batter it was coated in was familiar looking. When it came it had eyeballs, two of them I was careful to note. And tentacles, loads of them. It was whole baby squid, Ewan explained. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t face food but I knew I should soak up the alcohol. Suddenly my mouth flooded with saliva.

  ‘Wolf in,’ said Ewan.

  I closed my eyes and crammed a baby squid into my mouth.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘Mmm, crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Reassuringly greasy and salty. Like my mum’s cooking but absolutely nothing like it at all.’

  Something else arrived at the table: small, fried and salted green peppers.

  ‘Pimientos de Padrón,’ said Ewan.

  An amused smile played around his lips as he watched me eat, closing my eyes to scoff the chiperones and tearing out the pepper stalks with my fingers and teeth.

  ‘Pimientos de Padrón, algunos pican, otros no,’ he said as though reciting a nursery rhyme.

  By my expression he could see that I didn’t get it.

  ‘Some are hot, some not,’ he explained, ‘just be careful, you’ll know all about it if you get a hot one.’

  It wasn’t until my tongue exploded in a firestorm that I got it. The heat in my mouth became apparent on my face. Ewan found this hilarious. He’d obviously been waiting for this, playing Russian roulette at my expense, watching to see which innocent-looking pepper would turn out to be edible dynamite.

  My face was purple with embarrassment and smothered coughing, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me choke. I pulled my stomach muscles tight and swallowed the fiery pepper. I reached for my wine glass, drained it and walked out. Outside in the street, out of sight and earshot of Ewan, with my eyes and nose streaming, I allowed myself a good cough. This was a sustained and productive cough, so productive I nearly vomited, but instead of clearing my lungs, my windpipe became narrower and I found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

  I wasn’t surprised by this fit, it had happened before. It had begun happening after I got out of hospital, some kind of stress reaction. I’d managed to hide it from Mum and the boys but I’d noticed the coughing fits were becoming more frequent and more intense. There was no doubt that this one had been induced by the Bashed Head Boy incident but there had been loads of other times when it had come on for no apparent reason. One of these days my throat would close completely and that would be the end of me. Death would finally catch me, I’d wilt and die like a cut flower.

  Ewan came out after me with a glass of water. He wasn’t laughing now.

  ‘You okay? Here, drink this.’

  I had my back to him. I leaned into the wall, resting my head on my forearm, coughing hard. He held out the water but I shook my head, my only means of communicating. I leaned forward, resting my hands on my thighs, blocking him out of my line of sight. He kept his distance and I was grateful.

  Sanj came out and was surprised to find us there. Ewan grabbed him, whispering instructions. Sanj went back into the café and came out with half a baguette. As he approached he was already burrowing into the bread with his bare hands. He scooped out a lump of dough and kneaded it before passing it to Ewan. Ewan approached me slowly and put a hand on my back.

  ‘Here, chew this and swallow it slowly,’ he said gently.

  I shook my head slowly. There was no way I was going to swallow a lump of dough that had been mangled in the hands of these two. And besides, I’d tried bread before, and water, neither of them worked, nothing worked. I just had to hack my guts up until the fit passed. I just had to hope that this wouldn’t be the time I’d keel over and die.

  When it became clear that they could do nothing for me, Ewan had quietly dismissed Sanj. Ewan continued to stand guard at a discreet distance but it was ten minutes of gagging, heaving and choking before I could afford to take even shallow breaths. I knew I was over the worst when the tears started. Ewan passed me a napkin. I kept my back to him and tried to disguise my fear, relief and mortal embarrassment by blowing my nose and wiping my face.

  ‘C’mon back inside,’ he said softly, putting his arm around my shoulder. He ordered me a large brandy.

  ‘Drink it slow, it’ll relax you,’ he said.

  He was right. It did relax me. I laughed.

  ‘What’s funny?’ said Ewan, with an unsure smile.

  It wasn’t funny, it was tragic. My first ever date and I’d made a huge fool of myself. It was so tragic there was nothing else to do but laugh.

  ‘Your friend Sanj called you Ju
an.’

  ‘Aye,’ he sighed, ‘people here can’t say Ewan. It’s hard for them to pronounce. No matter how many times I tell them, they always end up calling me Juan.’

  To Ewan’s surprise and mine, I snaked my arms around him. It could have been the brandy that made me do it, on top of the wine. Or maybe it was the flowers he bought me or the lack of stair lighting in Chloe’s building, but it was none of these things.

  It was death; death made me do it.

  In hospital, when I was close to being measured for a shroud, I was scared. Scared and horny. That was probably why my recovery was so rapid. Dr Collins told my family I had a good attitude, a strong life force. But I just wanted sex. I spent every waking hour in my narrow hospital bed fantasising about what the buck-toothed hospital orderly, Frank, would do to me. I could have picked any one of the handsome young doctors, including Dr Collins, but it was always dirtier to dream of Frank. I was terrified of death but I was even more scared to die a virgin.

  On the staircase with the dead boy I’d felt fear, but also lust. Not for him, I felt pity for him, and a kind of fellow feeling. He was the corpse I should have been, on more than one occasion. I might fancy ugly guys but I didn’t fancy dead ones. I wasn’t a complete pervert. Seeing the dead boy had reawakened what I’d wanted when I was in hospital: a warm breathing body next to mine.

  I could feel Ewan’s hesitation. I was Charlie’s wee sister after all, but I also felt the warmth of his skin and the tensile strength under it.

  So,’ he said with a nervous laugh, ‘what d’you want to do now?’

  I smiled and pressed my stomach and my breasts against him and my face close to his.

  ‘Want me to show you some puppies?’

  Chapter 11

  It was a hot night as Ewan and I walked from Barceloneta to Barri Gotic. The main streets with the bars on them were busy, swarming with people smoking and laughing, but some of the smaller streets we passed through were dark and deserted. I was glad I wasn’t walking here alone. I kept to the pavement to avoid being hit by the mopeds that occasionally roared past, but Ewan strode up the middle of the street.

  ‘Where is it you’re staying?’ he asked me again.

  ‘You asked me that a minute ago,’ I giggled.

  ‘Sorry, so I did. Come here you to me,’ he said softly.

  I’d only left Scotland a few days ago but already his Celtic syntax had the power to soothe and seduce me. I bet he said this to all the girls.

  Another bike came down the street, a girl on a bicycle ringing her bell as a warning.

  ‘Ewan, be careful you don’t get run over,’ I said.

  Ewan was at least as drunk as me.

  ‘I’ll walk where I like. Don’t stand under there,’ he moaned, ‘you’ll get soaked.’

  It was true, as I walked beneath the balconies of the flats above, water was dripping on my head and down my neck.

  ‘Where is it coming from?’ I asked him.

  ‘Well, if you’re lucky it’s the run-off from somebody doing their washing or watering their plants.’

  ‘And if I’m not?’

  ‘Then it’s their condensed sweat. See those wee boxes up there? They’re gathering up people’s sweat and spilling it on to your head.’

  ‘Eeuch!’ I squawked, moving off the pavement.

  ‘Come here you to me, you lovely wee thing.’

  This time I came to him. We walked down the middle of the road with our arms entwined.

  ‘Aye, your big brother Charlie’s doing all right then, eh? Electrical engineer? He was telling me he’s got his own business. Must be making good money. Good on the boy, I always knew he’d do well.’

  ‘You sound like you miss Scotland.’

  ‘Claro. Of course I do. It’s my homeland.’

  ‘Would you ever go back?’

  ‘And do what? Work in a hostel? There aren’t any in Cumbernauld. And there’s no call for fluent Catalan speakers either. I’m not trained for anything else. I couldn’t go back to living in a council flat and signing on. I’ve stayed away too long. I can’t go back to Scotland, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it.’

  I thought Ewan looked as though he might start crying, but I was wrong.

  ‘Oh flower of Scotland!’ he sang.

  ‘When will we see,

  your likes again?

  That fought and died for,

  your wee bit hill and glen,

  and stood against him,’

  Ewan aggressively interrogated himself.

  ‘Against who?’

  And then vigorously replied, ‘Proud Edward’s army,

  and sent him homeward,

  to think again.’

  Having sex with Ewan tonight might not be such a good idea after all. Maybe I should wait until I got to know him a bit better. So far he was grumpy when he was sober, and maudlin when he was drunk. I was mulling this over when a river of dark blood came rushing down the hill towards us.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening; it was like something out of a horror movie. I screamed and dug my nails into Ewan’s arm.

  ‘Calm down!’ he said sharply. ‘It’s only the bin men. They’re cleaning the street, they do it every night.’

  And then I saw that it was the bin men. They were washing the ground, aiming a fat hose into dark corners, flushing the muck out along the street and down into the drains. Even though rationally I knew this, I was still terrified of the black water touching me. I tried to run in the opposite direction but Ewan held tight to my arm.

  ‘Here, get on.’

  He bent his knees and invited me to jump on his back.

  As I leapt on him the filthy water flowed over the soles of his flip-flops and between his toes. I held tight, my arms and legs clamped around him, my face against his.

  ‘Jesus,’ he complained, ‘will you stop that bloody squealing? It’s right in my ear!’

  *

  ‘Wow, nice place,’ Ewan said after we’d walked up the five flights. ‘This must be costing a packet.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I replied enigmatically.

  I showed him into the living room.

  ‘No, but really, how much is this place costing you?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s free.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘I mean, it’s free. I’m looking after it for a friend who’s gone to Berlin for a few days.’

  Ewan looked confused.

  ‘Charlie said you didn’t know anybody in Barcelona.’

  ‘Well it goes to show that Charlie doesn’t know everything.’

  ‘And this “friend” just left you their flat, just like that? Just went to Berlin and left you the keys to a penthouse apartment, for nothing?’

  ‘Ah well, it’s not entirely for nothing. I have to earn my keep.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘A bit of gardening. Crop management and animal husbandry,’ I said. ‘Come and I’ll show you.’

  I took him out to the terrace and showed him the marijuana plants.

  ‘Ah,’ he nodded.

  We sat on the plastic chairs and looked out over the terrace towards the sea.

  ‘Sea view,’ I indicated, but it was too dark to see anything. ‘If you concentrate, you can feel the wind off the sea.’

  We closed our eyes on the stiflingly hot night and concentrated on the breeze.

  ‘The maria’s not ready yet,’ I said with a backwards glance at the plants, ‘it’ll be a few weeks before the buds are out.’

  ‘Just as well I brought my own then.’

  Ewan reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a lump of hash.

  ‘Not as good as home grown but you have to take what you can get when you buy it in a café.’

  ‘You bought that in the café tonight?’

  ‘Those boys don’t just sell flowers you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Whatever you want, if you know the right people: coke, eckies, grass, anything.’

 
‘Cool. Is your friend Sanj ”the right people”?’

  ‘Could be. He’s certainly well connected. Sanj’s uncle, Mahmood, runs the street vendors.’

  ‘Sounds dodgy.’

  ‘Och, it’s not like that. Mahmood keeps everybody in a job; he takes care of his community.’

  ‘Like The Godfather?’

  ‘Kind of like The Godfather, only Asian. Mahmood’s more of a businessman than a gangster. And a successful one, he owns half the property in Raval. But it’s true, he’s shady. You hear rumours. I wouldn’t like to cross him. Nobody messes with Mahmood.’

  Ewan produced a tin containing tobacco and cigarette papers and began rolling a joint. He licked the paper and twisted the joint closed before handing it to me to light.

  Weeks ago, resisting the temptation to invite the buck-toothed Frank into my hospital bed, I’d decided that the first man I slept with would be gorgeous and sexy. Was Ewan a worthy recipient? The criterion, like my gloriously intact hymen, was tight. Since we’d been chatting I’d watched Ewan’s mouth closely, imagining kissing it. It was a small mouth, one that I’d previously compared to a cat’s arse, but I’d been unfair. His lips were full, pouty even, especially when he smiled. He smiled slowly, the left side of his lips curling slightly before the right, giving him a crooked smile. That was sexy, so was his gold hair and firm body.

  But good looks weren’t enough. The man who deflowered me would have to be a kind, considerate lover. I’d read enough in magazines to know what that meant. Ewan had shown kindness and consideration when I’d had my coughing fit. And he’d gallantly carried me across the dirty water in the street.

  Most important of all, my first lover would have to be discreet. Ewan scored highly here too. I doubted he would tell anyone, not Charlie anyway, who would probably kill him for breaching the sanctity of his wee sister.

  As I puffed on the joint I weighed it up. Perhaps before the night was out Ewan and I would be doing the mattress mambo.

  ‘No! Suck, don’t blow!’ he said. ‘That’s a waste of good dope.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  On the negative side, he was a grumpy git. I took another draw and the smoke slid into my lungs quite pleasantly. I passed the joint back, pulling a face I’d seen professional hash heads make.